United States v. Jones
| Decision Date | 29 June 1887 |
| Citation | 31 F. 725 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. JONES. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia |
Dupont Guerry, U.S. Atty., for prosecution.
Hill & Harris and Dessau & Bartlett, for defendant.
The defendant, on arraignment, filed a demurrer and a plea in abatement to the indictment. The demurrer averred that the allegation of ownership of the stolen property, to-wit, a check payable to Walker, and indorsed in blank by him, and mailed to S. T. Coleman & Co., to pay a debt due to that firm from Williams & Co., with the further averment that the check was the property of S. T. Coleman & Co., was fatally defective; the defendant insisting that it is a necessary conclusion of law from all the averments, taken together that the check was not the property of S. T. Coleman & Co. but was the property of the sender. There can be no doubt that it is essential to the indictment that there must be a faithful description of the article alleged to be stolen, (1 Whart.Crim.Law, § 934,) and the description must be proved as laid, (2 Whart.Crim.Law, § 1829; U.S. Martin, 2 McLean, 256.) It may be considered as settled that property sent by the mail may be laid in the sender. U.S. Burroughs, 3 McLean, 405; 1 Whart.Crim.Law, § 946.
It is insisted, too, that if payment is sought to be made by sending money or other articles of value through the mail, it is done at the sender's risk, unless done by direction, either express or implied; citing Code Ga. Sec. 2866; Abb. Trial Ev. 803, Sec. 10; Bank v. McManigle, 8 Amer.Rep. 236; 2 Daniel, Neg.Inst. § 1474. I do not think that these authorities afford fair analogies for the determination of the sufficiency of the description in an indictment for larceny. It may be true that to send money through the post is at the risk of the sender, in the absence of authorization to use the mails; but, unquestionably, the party to whom it is addressed, after it has left the mailing office, has a qualified interest in the letter, and a title to the valuable contents, upon which he could maintain trover against a third party unlawfully obtaining its possession. In the case of U.S. v. Jackson, reported in 29 F. 503, and subsequently in 9 Crim.Law Mag. 325, this court, in charging the jury, said that when the ownership of a registered letter and its contents is alleged to be in the person to whom the proof shows it was directed, and the proof shows that when it was stolen the sender had deposited it with the postmaster, taking his receipt therefor, and it had, by due course of mail, left the mailing office, that its custody by the post-office department was for the benefit of the person to whom it was addressed, that it was his property, the sender had no control over it, and there is no variance. There can be no difficulty in the application of the principle of this decision to an unregistered letter. The necessities of trade and commerce require that the courts should give a practical application to the rules of pleading in cases arising under the methods of modern times. An immense mass of technical cobwebs has been swept away by that gradual reform which has been evolved by the liberal tendencies of the courts in passing upon the sufficiency of indictments, and in repeated recommendations to congress, that profound lawyer and distinguished advocate, the Honorable Benjamin Harris Brewster, lately the attorney general of the United States, urged the importance of legislation which would further aid the courts in dispensing with the useless and damaging technicalities which tend so much to defeat the ends of justice. It cannot be denied that this indictment fairly advised the defendant of the crime of which he is charged. Besides, the regulations of the post-office department make the postal authorities the trustee for the person to whom the letter is addressed, and the construction of the executive department charged with the execution of a public duty is entitled to great weight, and ought not to be overturned, unless clearly erroneous. U.S. v. Philbrick, 120 U.S. 52, 7 S.Ct. 413.
The demurrer, therefore, is overruled.
The defendant then presented his plea in abatement. This recites the fact that on the grand jury who found the indictment there was a juror who was a member of the special jury which at a previous term returned a verdict of guilty against the prisoner for the same offense, which verdict has since been set aside; and the plea further recited that the defendant had no opportunity to challenge such grand juror. These facts being admitted by the district attorney,...
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Haugen v. United States, 11063.
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